In all media the Lone Ranger fictions are similar. John Reid was born in 1850 and was the sole survivor of a group of Texas Rangers who were ambushed by outlaws who killed five rangers, including his older brother, Daniel. The IndianTonto found him and nursed him to health. Reid then donned a black mask made from his dead brother’s vest, mounted his stallion, Silver, and roamed the West as the Lone Ranger to aid those in need, to fight evil, and to establish justice.

The character was created in the Lone Ranger radio program by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. First aired on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan, in 1933, the radio program was carried by more than 400 American stations by the end of the decade. It was radio that made the Lone Ranger’s theme song, Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell overture, a familiar tune in every child’s repertoire, and it was radio that made “Hi-yo, Silver, away!” a familiar playground exclamation.

The Lone Ranger’s first movie serial appeared in 1938. In 1949 a television version of the radio show debuted on the ABC network, and the sounds were linked to images and actors who became equally familiar. Clayton Moore played the Lone Ranger for the majority of the episodes, and Jay Silverheels became the embodied Tonto. Although the radio program ended in 1954 and the television show in 1957, the Lone Ranger’s adventures continued in various forms, including the movies The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) and The Lone Ranger (2013).

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...George W. Trendle to build on the success of The Lone Ranger, which was also produced at WXYZ. Trendle had the idea of using a modern-day character who was related to the Lone Ranger, and writer Fran Striker was given the job of fleshing out the details. The Green Hornet was the alter ego of Brit Reid, the owner and publisher of the Daily...

American fictional character, companion of the Lone Ranger. Primarily through his presence on radio and television, Tonto was one of the best-known Native American characters in 20th-century popular culture.

a loosely organized military force that policed Texas from the time of their initial organization in the 1830s to their merger with the state highway patrol in 1935. The first Texas Rangers were minutemen hired by American settlers as protection against Indian attacks. During the Texas war for...